“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, with Teenagers — Part 2
For part 1 of the story, see here.
“Okay,” I began fourth period with more discipline. I had spent the break filing through hardly discernible notes in the margins of my Carver anthology. I had gotten a lot of mileage out of it. Cathedral. A Small Good Thing. Neighbors. Fat. The Father. So Much Water, So Close to Home. I made notes in margins before I ever became an English teacher. I never imagined those notes would someday serve a livelihood.
“Time for Nick and Laura.”
I added the next of Carver’s couples to the board.
“Mr. Krasner?”
“Yes Hakeem?”
“You promised us sir.”
“Oh boy. Here we go.”
“She beat you sir? Is this why you divorced?”
“Hakeem!” Wiki charged.
“It’s okay Wiki. I understand the curiosity. I try to lead a conversation about love and you guys try to undress me in front of the classroom — that’s a metaphor.”
“Oh, ho, Mr. Krasner,” Chris couldn’t resist. “You are right. We want you to undress!”
“They’re awful,” Wiki lamented.
“But I have to keep some mystery between us. If I start talking too much about love, this will become group therapy.”
“It already is!” Chris said. “Come on, tell us something.”
“What can I say?” I turned from the board and sat again at the edge of the desk. “It wasn’t violent love or even crazy love. The marriage I mean. As a teenager I experienced a kind of crazy love. It’s as you say Wiki, a lot of vulnerability, a lot of fear. I think at that age, love is more about being loved than loving. You have such a need to be loved.”
The class was listening.
“But you get older and hopefully more confident in who you are, so that you’re not just seeking love but ready to really give it.”
“And the marriage sir? Did you give it?”
“I’m afraid I was still seeking it.”
There were a few audible sighs.
“And now to the weather!”
I returned to my safe position in front of the whiteboard, my marker held before me like a field reporter’s mic.
“Summer flooding has claimed the lives of 63 victims along the banks of the Wisła; another 43 are said to be missing — and now to Jan with sports!’”
“Aha,” Chris said. “You don’t want to talk about it.”
“I want to talk about it! I want to talk about love! I want to talk about Nick and Laura!’”
The class exhaled.
“Are we all here?”
“Yes sir.”
“Paweł?”
“Yes?”
He looked up from his iPad.
“Just a minute sir…”
“Oh, no problem. You just let me know when you’re ready.”
We waited on him as if he called the meeting.
“Okay sir, finished.”
“Thank you. So, what are we going to call this one?”
I waited for someone to initiate.
“It’s a much nicer love,” Monika opened. “It seems more real to me than violence. He’s stroking her hand and they’re really affectionate with each other.”
“That’s because they’re at the beginning,” Chris said. “As Mr. Krasner said, it’s always like that at the beginning.”
“How long have they been together?” I asked.
“18 months, I think?”
“And they’re married right?”
“Yea, but it’s fresh.”
“So why don’t we call this honeymoon love,” I offered.
“I like that,” Monika said.
“Because it’s good,” Filip said.
She glared back at him.
“Why can’t it be good? Why does it have to hurt?” she asked.
“Filip, you don’t value honeymoon love because it’s good, and not bad?”
He refrained from saying anything.
“I think honeymoon love is a phase,” Chris jumped in. “You’re not totally familiar yet. You just discovered each other. You’re in love with what might be, aren’t you? It’s all new, it’s all possible.”
“It’s all lovely,” I said with a note of despair.
“But it ends,” Wiki said noting my fatalism. “It’s like a high that way. A drug.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Paweł said.
“What?”
“That it doesn’t last.”
“Maybe it does.”
“No it doesn’t,” Chris said.
“And maybe it does,” Wiki contradicted herself. “I mean, some couples are happy at the beginning and at the end.”
“And the middle?” I asked.
“Well….” she hedged.
“But honeymoon love is not supposed to be about the middle sir,” Maya interjected. “We’re talking about honeymoon love. Not — ”
“True love?”
She thought for a moment.
“Maybe honeymoon love can be true,” she continued, nursing her doubts.
“Like love at first sight sir,” Hakeem said. “Is it true?”
Maya looked at me hopefully.
“It happens,” I said. “But I guess what makes it true is that it lasts. As we’ve written. Time will tell Maya.”
She laughed and reddened.
“And maybe Nick and Laura will last. Is there any evidence in the story that they won’t?”
“Yea,” Chris said while digging into his text. “There is that part near the end, after they’ve all had a little to drink. He says something and she reacts strangely. Let me find it.”
“They’ve all had a lot to drink. It’s important to the story,” I added.
“Alcohol goes with love!” Hakeem burst out. “They go together, don’t they sir?”
“Well, they can, but in this story it’s not the way you’re thinking. They’re just talking about love. The alcohol helps them talk more openly.”
“Maybe we should drink too sir, since we’re only talking about love,” Paweł quipped.
“Okay, I got it,” Chris said. “It’s when Nick says ‘I could head on right out into the sunset.’ And Laura doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and he gets annoyed.”
“So what does that show?”
“I don’t know. That maybe they don’t really know each other.”
“I think they just want to protect what they have,” Wiki said. “They’re still vulnerable. Mel and Terri are more open because they have already loved a few times. And they seem older. They’re less careful with what to say and what not to say.”
“We’ll get to them. They’re past honeymoon love certainly. But I like this idea that’s coming out, how honeymoon love is love at its discovery and therefore all good.”
I uncapped the marker and again the class moaned.
“You’re gonna need a bigger board sir,” Chris said.
“We’re generating ideas. It’s supposed to be sloppy.”
“Should we be writing all this down?” Paweł asked with concern.
“If you want to Paweł. It’s your choice.”
“Oh.”
He didn’t know what to do. I paraphrased the previous line and continued.
“Honeymoon love is discovery love, a period of bliss. But it’s also a mist. There’s so much unknown in it. When the mist clears, what’s left? Will they still love?”
“Well, that’s the beauty of it, isn’t it?” Wiki said. “They don’t need to know.”
“So it doesn’t last Mr. Krasner,” Hakeem said. “You seem to be saying that it doesn’t last.”
“The original feeling can’t last. You can’t discover something twice.”
“But you can discover others!” Chris picked up.
“Other partners? Right. If it’s discovery you want, then you’ll likely have many honeymoons.”
“I’d rather have something that lasts,” Wiki said sincerely.
“Do you think it lasts? We could argue this,” I said.
“You mean honeymoon love?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I wrote ‘Love Last?’ on the board near the names Nick and Laura, and continued the interrogation.
“Chris?”
“What, does love last?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Filip?”
“Of course not. Nothing lasts.”
“Sir,” Monika cut in, “I don’t really like the question. I mean, if we say honeymoon love, then no, I don’t think it lasts. But I still think love can last.”
“If what happens? Does it have to change into some other kind of love? Does it move to another stage? Does love grow?”
She paused before speaking.
“Yes, I think it does, or can. Like true love. If honeymoon love lasts maybe it becomes true.”
“Or if love grows, it lasts. Then we know what true love is. What do you think?”
“If it was honeymoon love first!” Chris said excitedly.
“Honeymoon love that grows.”
“Wow, we can end class now,” Wiki said. “We’ve defined true love.”
I was scribbling the definition on the board; then Wiki added: “I’d rather experience it though.”
“Can we end class sir?” Paweł asked earnestly.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m no longer interested in the question of true love, how about that? I’m interested in all the kinds of love there are. We seem to be saying that love is a kind of journey. And they’re all here, all the phases of love are in this story. Even loves that don’t exist anymore. Ghost love. Ex love. They’re all talked about.”
“Talked about! Talked about!” Chris lamented. “I’d rather read the Kama Sutra! At least they give instructions!”
“I can’t assign that. I’d hear from your parents.”
“We’ll bring notes in sir!” Hakeem inched forward. “My father will sign.”
“Sh!! We have to talk about love!”
“Why?” Wiki pressed. “We don’t know anything about love until we experience it. And then there’s always more kinds to experience.”
“Isn’t it nice, talking about love?” I cajoled. “Would you rather talk about biogenetics?”
“Let’s talk sir,” Monika mediated. “Someone hasn’t voted on honeymoon love yet.”
She turned suggestively to Maya, there by the door, her head against the wall.
“Maya! Oh yes, what do you think? Does it last?”
I circled the word love and showed my anticipation.
She puckered her lips, shrugged and said-questioned: “It lasts?”
“Of course Maya — it lasts, it lasts!”
“Yay!” Wiki said. “I’m changing my answer.”
“Sir,” Maya continued in a soft voice, quieting down the laughter, “if we believe that love doesn’t last, we’d never fall in love in the first place. What’s the point of that?”
“You won’t get fooled,” Filip countered from behind her.
“And you’ll never experience love,” Maya shot back.
“It seems to be a risk,” I refereed. “There are no guarantees.”
There was a silence.
“Talking about love sucks,” Chris said with finality.
“Onto Mel and Terri! Great segue!”
I reassumed my position before the board and added their names.
“Finally,” Wiki said. “They did most the talking anyway.”
“Well, one of them.”
“Mel. Big talker.
“He talks more as he drinks.”
“He drinks a lot.”
“I think he drinks to escape,” Wiki said.
“Escape what?”
“Maybe that he doesn’t really love Terri? I don’t know. But he talks and talks and he’s the one talking about love. He wants to know what it is.”
“So that means he doesn’t love her? He says he loves her right in the story.”
“Yea, we already went over that.’”
“You don’t believe him?”
“They’re just words. Love ya.”
“Love ya too.”
“See? It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I found the passage sir, where he says he loves everyone,” Chris interjected. “Maybe we can read it?”
“That’s a great idea. What page is it?”
“120. Near the top.”
“Can everyone turn to that page? Paweł and Filip, can you share with someone?”
They both shook off cobwebs and reluctantly repositioned themselves. Chris prepared to read. We settled into a silence, hunched over the story.
“What do any of us know about love?” Mel said. “It seems we’re just beginners at love. We say we love each other and we do, I don’t doubt it. I love Terri and Terri loves me, and you guys love each other too. You know the kind of love I’m talking about now. Physical love, that impulse that drives you to someone special, as well as love of the other person’s being, his or her essence, as it were. Carnal love and, well, call it sentimental love — “
“That’s two more loves for our list,” Chris sighed.
“Keep going.”
“The day to day caring about the other person. But sometimes I have a hard time accounting for the fact that I must have loved my first wife too. But I did, I know I did. So I suppose I am like Terri in that regard. Terri and Ed.”
“Should I continue sir?”
“Absolutely.”
He thought about it and then went on. “There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I’d like to know. I wish someone could tell me.”
“So Wiki? What happened to that love?”
“It died. I guess it didn’t grow.”
“And he doesn’t love Terri?”
“No,” she collected herself, “I think he does. But he also knows that love doesn’t last. He’s more experienced now.”
“They’re past the honeymoon stage,” Monika said. “They don’t have illusions.”
“Aha. Illusions. I think we have to add that word somewhere up here. Illusions seem rather important to love.”
I let the word “illusions” hover near all the couples.
“It must be impossible to have illusions after you have loved once and it died,” Chris said thoughtfully.
“Do you think that makes the love worse next time around?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe it would.”
“So you think love is a kind of magic? Dependent on illusions?”
“Maybe so.”
“You surprise me Chris. You’re starting to sound like a romantic.”
He shrugged at the label.
“Then it seems you can only really love once,” Maya said, “and if it doesn’t last, the next time is going to be something else?”
“Something that’s not love?”
“Um, maybe. I don’t know. Something without magic.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I reassured. “Love is always magical at the beginning. I mean, Nick and Laura have also been married before, but they’re back to that stage. Right? Cuddling, petting each other. They’re in love.”
Maya recognized the phrase, recognized herself in love, and smiled.
“But Mel and Terri have been married longer, and they’re a little older.”
“And they talk about their ex-loves so openly,” Wiki said. “Like they have all these notes to compare.”
“We call it baggage.”
The class might have forgotten, I was about Mel’s age.
“Sir,” Hakeem spoke up. “I’m stuck on something. Mel says he loved his first wife and now he hates her guts. That’s kind of strange when you think about it. How can you love and hate the same person?”
“Didn’t Filip say that love and hate are kind of the same thing?”
“He said they were different colors of the same thing,” Chris corrected. Filip had already forgotten.
“I guess I have to put this on the board. Can’t have a whiteboard of love without hate.”
I scribbled away and noticed that most the students were copying the definitions, aphorisms, lists and arrows into their notebooks. Even Paweł.
“What makes love grow sir?”
Maya asked it.
“I’m not sure Maya,” I turned around. “It’s a great question. But I think it has a lot to do with this stage of love that Mel and Terri are in. It has to do with marriage. And this is different from love. It’s after the magic, after falling in love. And I think it has something to do with work.”
Hakeem groaned.
“Like homework sir?”
“Exactly like homework!”
“But everyone hates homework.”
“Yes we do. And maybe that’s why so many marriages fail.”
“You didn’t do your homework sir?” Chris asked pointedly.
The class waited for me to reveal something of a personal nature.
“I could have done more.”
“Why didn’t you sir? Were you afraid?”
“Oh, jeez. I don’t know. It’s hard to answer Chris. I was still searching. I was searching for something and it’s hard to be married while you’re still searching.”
“Searching for what sir?”
“If I knew, I would have found it.”
“So you’re still searching sir?”
I had their complete attention.
“Maybe he’s searching for love,” Filip said.
“Maybe,” I played.
“Maybe he likes searching for love,” Chris progressed.
“Well, you guys are saying wise things. Searching for love is one thing, but loving is another.”
“You’re a romantic sir!”
“Of course I am. I’m a high school English teacher.”
They laughed collectively and I sought my way out of danger. It is a risk to be so open.
“What are we going to call this love?” I asked. “This new one we’re talking about. That’s married and no longer has the magic?”
“Let’s just call it married love,” Wiki suggested.
“Okay. Definitely lacks a ring.”
“Or working love,” Chris suggested.
“We’ll stick with married love. In fact, it’s remarried love, which is like returning to the beginning of the game. You know, like in Monopoly, when you get the ‘go to jail’ card?”
“Go to jail sir? Should we call it jailed love sir?”
“That was a slip!”
I wrote ‘Jailed Love’ underneath ‘(re)Married Love’.
“How am I going to explain this whiteboard to the next teacher?”
“They never notice sir,” Chris said. “You could write child porn up there and they’d just erase it blindly.”
“Let’s not go there. So, Mel and Terri,“ I turned back to them. “Mel seems pretty hung up on the fact that he now hates someone he used to love. He goes on to say a lot more. Chris, can you continue as Mel? Remember, you’re getting a little loaded.”
“No problem sir!”
Chris swallowed from his glass, cleared his throat, and talked:
“You guys have been together eighteen months and you love each other. It shows all over you. You glow with it. But you both loved other people before you met each other. You’ve both been married before, just like us. And you probably loved other people before that too, even. Terri and I have been together five years, been married for four. And the terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace, you might say, is that if something happened to one of us — excuse me for saying this — but if something happened to one of us tomorrow, I think the other one, the other person, would grieve for a while, you know, but then the surviving party would go out and love again, have someone else soon enough. All this, all this love we’re talking about, it would be just a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I’m wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don’t know anything, and I’m the first one to admit it.”
“Stop there Mel.”
The class turned up from the pages and we lingered in the atmosphere of the story.
“Later he goes on to say ‘love you’ to everyone, like they’re just words,” Chris said.
“Right. There’s definitely some double meaning there…”
“You can’t love that way,” Hakeem insisted. “He thinks too much.”
“Well, he’s older. We do that.”
“I think he’s asking a really good question though,” Wiki proceeded. “It’s true isn’t it, that if someone dies, we just find someone else. And then we eventually forget all about that first love. Well maybe not everything.”
“It gets fuzzy.”
“Do we have to forget?”
“Kind of.”
“Why?”
“To let someone else in.”
“So love is just this temporary thing?” Wiki said unhappily. “Just something to keep us from being lonely?”
“Can be,” I said. “I don’t remember where I heard this, I think from a Woody Allen movie. Yea, I remember: it was from Husbands and Wives. Appropriate.”
Shaking heads.
“You don’t know it? Well, it’s about two middle aged couples, married couples, and they both split up, but one of the couples gets back together after unfulfilling experiments with other lovers. The wife says at the end that love is just a buffer from loneliness.”
“A buffer from loneliness?” Wiki echoed.
I added the new definition to the board, drawing an arrow back to ‘(re)Married Love’.
“This is getting pretty realistic sir,” Wiki said.
“I don’t think it has to be so gloomy,” Chris countered. “I mean, Mel loves Terri, right now. And if she were to die, he would grieve. What’s he supposed to do, never love again? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s just passing,” Monika said.
“What is?” I asked.
“Love.”
“And life too?”
“Well, yea.”
“It seems they have a lot in common, love and life.”
“One helps us get through the other,” Chris helped me out.
There was a pause.
“Yea, but…”
“Yes Wiki?”
“I mean, I get all that. We should continue to find love and all. But Mel’s not really happy. He’s making everyone uncomfortable.”
“Is it true what he says? That love is passing? That it’s not really YOU I love. It’s the love I love. So, I can love you too. And you, and you, and maybe you too.”
I directed the words to each face in the classroom. They considered my meaning.
“But it should be the person too!” Wiki said. “Who wants to look at their loved one and admit that it’s not really YOU? That it’s only passing? That it’s not real in some way?”
“But it becomes more real, doesn’t it? Or do you prefer illusions?”
“No — I didn’t say that! I mean, there’s just something underneath Mel’s talk that makes me think he doesn’t love Terri. He’s bitter. ”
“Because he tells her to shut up,” Chris chided. “You’re still stuck on that.”
“Not exactly.”
We waited for her to collect her thoughts.
“This whole talk about love made him angry, and angry at her somehow.”
“Aha. For not being the love he was talking about?” I asked.
She mulled it over.
“I just thought of something,” Chris said. “Are each of these partners right for each other?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You know, they’re in the marriages they’re in, but is Mel right for Terri and is Terri right for Mel? And is Nick right for Laura, and Laura right for Nick? Or is Terri right for Nick?”
“And Mel for Laura?”
“Right.”
“What’s your point?”
“You said married love was about work. But what if you’re just with the wrong person?”
“Huh. How can you tell the difference?”
“I don’t know. Over time I guess.”
“Urggghhh!”
“Wiki?”
“It’s just, who has time to experience all these different types of love just to get to the right one? And maybe never find it? It means we have to have all these broken relationships before we understand anything!”
Again I felt the unintended sting.
“It’s okay Wiki,” I said. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and hit it right on the first try.”
She gave a lovely exasperated expression.
“Chris is asking a good question about choosing our partners. How do we know Terri is right for Mel, or Mel for Terri? What brought them together? Wasn’t it likely a fair share of chance? Let me put it this way: do you believe there is one person for you to love in this world, you know, THE ONE, or that you can love just about anyone? When you’re ready, on your terms. As it were a switch that you controlled, not something that just happened?”
I added the question, ‘Love the ONE, or anyone?’ and proceeded to hear another dated melody.
“When you’re down, and confused, and you don’t remember, who you’re talkin to….”
“Uh-oh, we’ve finally broken him.”
“Crosby, Stills and Nash? Love the one you’re with? ”
“We’ll google it sir.”
“I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of love-googling after class.”
They erupted again.
“If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with — doesn’t it make it sound like love is a really an intention? And therefore a kind of work, rather than a feeling?”
“So romantic,” Wiki said dripping with sarcasm.
“Well, that’s what married love is. You wake up with someone day after day, year after year, and most of the time you don’t feel the love, not like Nick and Laura do. You have to share the bathroom and cook breakfast and get dressed and do the dishes. You watch each other brush their teeth and spit the toothpaste into the sink.”
“You shower together!” Hakeem volunteered.
“You shower together, sure, but not in the way you’re thinking. You get used to the sight of the naked body. And it grows older. And you see that. And you still have to love that body.”
“Oh,” Chris snuck in, “now I’m starting to understand what you mean by work.”
“I’ve said too much. But doing things to keep that love alive, taking care of the other, real care, and forgetting about your all important self. This kind of love doesn’t have an ego. I think it’s too hard to manage when you’re young.”
“I don’t think Mel and Terri have that kind of love,” Wiki said. “Maybe the old couple does. Maybe that’s why he talks about them at the end.”
“We need to get to that.”
I checked my phone. 18 minutes.
“I think it’s dangerous what Mel’s saying,” Wiki repeated.
“That’s exactly how critics describe Carver’s stories! Dangerous. And yet they’re most all about people talking. Couples talking. What’s so dangerous about talking?”
They took a moment.
“Talking reveals the truth,” Maya responded.
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Um, I don’t know. You might say things that aren’t exactly true? Or they’re true, but not true in your life. So then you’d have to face that.”
“Face what?”
“That you’re living a lie,” Chris said. “I mean, it’s better to just keep some things unsaid, and — ”
“And bury them?”
“Well, maybe. If you want to protect your marriage.”
“Protect the marriage by burying the truth?”
“Well….”
“Most people don’t have true love sir,” Monika said. “They have to protect the love they have. Their married love.”
“So married love is love that’s not real and protected at all costs?”
I thought to write it on the board.
“It is real! It’s everyday real,” Wiki said. “You see the toothpaste!”
“I thought it was work?” Hakeem said.
“It’s work if you’re willing to talk about it,” I rejoined. “The truth in it. And deal with that, whatever it is.”
“So it makes a lot of sense to talk about love,” Maya said.
“Not if you want it to last,” Filip remarked suddenly.
We all considered his darkness.
“Let’s face it sir,” he continued, “most marriages are like this — two people hiding their buried truths. It’s like they’re having dinner every night at the table, having casual conversation about work, about things to do. And underneath the floor is the truth. Talking about the truth is for stories. It’s dangerous. That’s why most people don’t do it.”
“Maybe they should do it.”
“They’d have to go back to school.”
“Yea, sign them up for English sir!” Chris said.
“It couldn’t hurt.”
I tried to imagine all their parents, sitting in place their kids’ positions, on the same wooden seats. Hakeem’s parents. Chris’s parents. Wiki’s, Monika’s, Maya’s, Paweł’s. Filip’s parents. They crowded the room in various expressions, postures, stalemates. It occurred to me that I was only getting half the picture, maybe even a quarter. And everything my students had to say about love was really a portrait of their absent parents.
“Talking and listening is a kind of work,” I changed my tone. “Maybe being heard. Maybe even changing something, which is harder to do than it sounds. It is real and everyday. The glow of honeymoon love has faded. And now love is like a verb. An active verb. To love someone, as opposed to being in love. You see the difference?”
“We’re starting to.”
“Chris’s question is relevant, whether there is such a thing as the One, or that you can rather love anyone.”
“Well, not anyone,” he clarified. “She’s got to be good looking.”
The girls smirked a little.
“What Wiki, you could love someone who didn’t meet your criteria for good looks?” I quizzed.
“A good build!” Maya corrected.
“Well, Wiki? What’s your answer?”
“I’m totally confused!”
“That’s a good sign. You’re thinking. Is it the ONE, or anyone?”
“I’ve always felt that there was a ONE. I mean, there has to be. What about all the movies that suggest there’s a ONE?”
The boys chuckled.
“What, like Cinderella?”
“No, that’s a fairy tale. I just mean there’s a chemistry thing. Some people you connect with, chemically, and others you don’t. There’s got to be that match, that spark. Like um, I don’t know. Pick a movie.”
They drew a blank.
“I’ve got one,” I said.
“Oh no, from the 60’s?”
“No, I think the 90’s. What, it wasn’t that long ago.”
“Sir, we were just born then.”
“Aaaanyway, I forget the title, but it was with Robert Downey Jr. and Marisa Tomei. It’s a recycled version of the love archetype Wiki’s talking about. This girl grows up with the belief that there is some ONE out there for her, her destiny…”
“It’s called Only You sir.” Paweł said alertly. He was a genius with the iPad.
“Thanks Paweł! While you’re there, can you read the synopsis?”
“Sure…Faith, Marisa Tomei, believes that two soul-mates can be united if they find each other — “
“Right, the character’s name is Faith.”
“This is worse than Cinderella sir,” Chris derided.
“It IS Cinderella!”
“Faith,” Paweł continued, “believes that two soul-mates can be united if they find each other. From the…oyuya? Sir?”
I consulted the screen.
“Ouija board, you know ‘wee-jee’. Tells the future.”
“From the wee-jee board, she has found the name of her missing half, and it is D-A-M-O-N B-R-A-D-L-E-Y. Later, at the carnival, the fortune teller sees the name Damon Bradley in the Crystal Ball and Faith is convinced. She is told that “You make your own destiny,…don’t wait for it to come to you”, but she is looking for Damon. 14 years later, she is engaged to a dull podiatrist and plans to marry until she gets a call from one of his classmates who is on his way to Venice, Italy. The classmate is Damon Bradley.”
“You watched this Mr. Krasner?” Chris asked.
“I did more than that. I even liked it.”
“I like that kind of story too!” Wiki said. “But what we’re saying now is that sometimes we just end up with someone. Whoever is closest. We just settle down with the podiatrist. And love becomes work. Oh, it’s horrible.”
“Well, work can be beautiful. Like writing a good story. It’s work. Doesn’t anything beautiful require work?”
“Well, yes. Now I’m even more confused!”
“You have to pick Wiki: the ONE or anyone?”
“Ohhhh…….anyone, I guess. God! I hate this!”
“That’s great.”
I made a little table on the board, and checked off ‘anyone’ next to Wiki’s name. This was turning into a kind of litmus test.
“Monika?”
“I don’t know sir,” she said again tilting her head. “I think there might be a ONE out there, but it’s really hard to find. I mean, what if Terri is really Nick’s ONE? But they didn’t meet at the right time. They met other people first. And now it’s impossible for them to find out who is really the ONE. There must be thousands, really, if you think about it, who are better for us than the ones we end up choosing.”
“This is horrible,” Wiki repeated.
“Sounds like you are also casting your vote for anyone.”
“I guess so. But I don’t think it has to be so bad. Nobody’s perfect anyway.”
Monika’s parents appeared before me. They were holding hands, unpretentious. Happy.
“Hakeem? What kind of love do you believe in? The ONE, or anyone?”
“Well,” he cast an important air to his words, “I’ve listened to what everyone has had to say. It’s difficult. It seems that love is work, or married love is work, and doesn’t have any magic to it. So it’s not love. Not like we think it is, at first. But then work can be beautiful, like you say, and this is true because I know it from football.”
Filip laughed in disbelief.
“No really, I love football. But to be good at it, I have to practice every day. And I don’t like practice, but I want to play better. And in the games, if I play really well, that’s beautiful.”
“And you couldn’t play well if not for the work.”
“Right.”
“So love is like football,” Chris said dryly. “This is getting weird.”
“Seems we can talk our way anywhere.”
“Even so,” Hakeem carried on with a glow to his face, “football is the one sport that I truly love. I don’t care for basketball or volleyball. It’s just football for me. I’m totally in love with it.”
“Oh, great analogy! So football is your ONE?”
“That’s right sir. I believe in the ONE!”
“Our first romantic.”
Wiki looked stunned.
“Chris — we’re up to you. I’m not sure I have to ask.”
“Why sir? You said I was a romantic earlier.”
“True, you’ve expressed both points of view rather well, the realistic and romantic. So, where do you stand?”
“In the middle sir. The only place to stand.”
We smiled in equal degree.
“Sir,” Wiki said, “make him pick! We all have to pick!”
She looked at me with irrepressible will.
“Well, Chris, I guess nothing is really 50–50. We all lean one way or the other. If it was 60–40, which way would you lean?”
“Anyone sir. You can mark it down.”
“I thought so. Filip?”
“Sir.”
We waited patiently.
“What is the choice again?”
“Do you believe that there is some ONE out there for everyone, or that it’s more accurate to say we can love anyone, whoever we happen to find?”
“Oh. I don’t like those choices very much.”
“Well, they’re the choices you get.”
“My parents are divorced sir, and remarried. My step-father has been married twice before. I’ve seen this up close, this remarried love. And I think it’s shit, really. I don’t think people should get married at all. They lose themselves.”
I tread carefully.
“Do you think that love is work?”
“Maybe it is, but it doesn’t seem to work. Do you know what I mean? Because I’m not sure I do.”
“You know a lot actually.”
“I think love is a kind of chaos, that’s all. I think it’s something that you survive more than anything else.”
I didn’t know what to write next to his name. I put ‘chaos’.
“Paweł? You still here?”
“Of course sir. I’m following.”
“And?”
“I think there is someone out there for us sir.”
“Some ONE?” I stressed. “Like Damon Bradley?”
“Well not Damon Bradley, that’s a dude!”
“Okay, like Faith?”
“Yea…I guess. She’s kind of hot.”
“I’ll accept that. That gives us two romantics, three realists — one begrudgingly — one fatalist, and Maya.”
We turned our heads to her shadowy figure by the door.
“Well, I think there’s a ONE out there. I will stick with that.”
“Okay. That gives us three romantics and three realists.”
“It’s tied.”
“What do you think sir?” Hakeem asked eagerly. “You have to break the tie.”
“After all I have said, you have to ask?”
“He’s a romantic Hakeem,” Chris said. “That’s why you haven’t remarried sir? Because you’re a romantic?”
I bowed my head in defeat.
“Romantics win!”
“But this doesn’t mean you’ll be happy,” I added. “Always looking for the ONE, never happy with the one you get.”
“But sir,” Hakeem questioned, “how can you be a romantic after everything you said? About work and all? If love is work, then you have to believe you can love anyone. I mean, as long as you’re attracted to each other and all.”
“I think you can. But I don’t know if I can.”
“So love is something that is never found?” Chris opined.
“Ideals are never really found,” I said, “because they’re perfect. But I don’t know. The story suggests that love can be found. Mel suggests it, doesn’t he? He even calls it real love.”
“The old couple,” Wiki said.
“Yes. The old couple. Finally.”
I looked at my phone again. 7 minutes. The students looked wilted and eager for lunch.
“Let’s just finish here because it is very important. It’s the climax of the story, isn’t it? The climax of Mel’s talk.”
I went straight to the label for this one, adding to our list ‘Real Old Love’.
“Can we set this up a little bit? What happened to the old couple? For the sake of Paweł and Filip, can someone paraphrase?”
“The old couple got in a car accident,” Chris stated, “and they were in intensive care in total body casts and the old man was trying to look at his wife — ”
“Well, don’t say too much.”
“They’re in the hospital and Mel is on duty there. He’s a doctor. Is that enough?”
“Paweł, Filip?”
They nodded their heads.
“Okay, I’m going to read this one from page 126, the middle of the page. Come on, we’re not done yet. Is everyone there?”
I waited until everyone was quiet and then assumed Mel’s rattled voice:
“I dropped in to see each of them every day, sometimes twice a day if I was up to doing other calls anyway. Casts and bandages, head to foot, the both of them. You know, you’ve seen it in the movies. That’s just the way they looked, just like in the movies. Little eye-holes and nose-holes and mouth-holes. And she had to have her legs slung up on top of it. Well, the husband was very depressed for the longest while. Even after he found out that his wife was going to pull through, he was still very depressed. Not about the accident, though. I mean, the accident was one thing, but it wasn’t everything. I’d get up to his mouth-hole, you know, and he’d say no, it wasn’t the accident exactly but it was because he couldn’t see her through his eye-holes. He said that was what making him feel so bad. Can you imagine? I’m telling you, the man’s heart was breaking because he couldn’t turn his goddam head and see his goddam wife.”
Mel looked around the table and shook his head at what he was going to say.
“I mean, it was killing the old fart just because he couldn’t look at the fucking woman.”
We all looked at Mel.
“Do you see what I’m saying?”
I turned up from the pages. They were all looking at me.
“Do you see what he’s saying? Do you see what Carver is saying?”
“I think this is real love sir,” Wiki said.
“More real than honeymoon love?”
“Yes. It’s funny because when we think of love, we normally think of young people. But maybe it’s more about old people. Maybe young people don’t really know anything about love.”
“Maybe people only know desire,” Filip said, clarifying something for himself. “Maybe that’s why it’s chaos.”
“Why do you think as a culture we always equate love with wet kisses?” I asked. “Wouldn’t a better symbol be a pair of hands clasped, like an old couple walking in the park? Shouldn’t Valentine’s Day celebrate old lovers rather than young?”
“That’s gross Mr. Krasner,” Hakeem said.
“Do you think the old couple love each other?”
“Of course sir.”
“And do you think they’re in love?”
“Yes, I do,” Wiki jumped in. “They love each other and they’re in love. It’s both. It’s true love sir.”
“Mel calls it real love. Love that has lasted and still has a little magic. It’s a far cry from two old partners who are just sticking with each other with all their buried truths. That desire to look at his wife is as strong gesture of love as I can imagine.”
“It was like the two of them had become one body,” Maya said wistfully. “That’s why he couldn’t stand not being able to see her. He was being kind of cut apart.”
“Like when we die,” I said somewhat heavily.
They waited.
“Does true love live on after we die?” Monika asked. “Does it ever die?”
“Oh, that is a lovely question.”
I found another chunk of the whiteboard to write it down.
“We’re drifting into spiritual waters now. We don’t have time to vote on it. Let it sink in a little, whether true love continues after death. Because if you believe that, then maybe there is such a thing as the ONE. And maybe that’s why Mel is so agitated and drunk.”
“There’s another part sir,” Chris said with interest, “right after that speech. And before the end. It’s about the ex-wife. Marjorie.”
He was looking down at his text.
“Right after that speech, Mel suddenly wants to call his kids.”
“But then Terri says something about the ex-wife answering the phone. Right? And then what should he do, hang-up?”
“I think Carver is saying that these ideals don’t really exist. I mean, he smashed them up. I’m beginning to doubt that the old couple even exists,” Chris said. “I think he wants to say that broken marriages exist. And crazy ex-lovers.”
“And remarried lovers,” I progressed.
“And they’re all damaged in some way. Mel’s yelling at his wife. He even says that he wants to sweep Laura off her feet, or something like that.”
“There’s a gap,” Monika said.
“Between what?”
“Between everything. I mean, between the old couple and these couples in the room.”
“Between ideal love and real love?”
“I think there’s a gap between all of them,” Chris said with momentum. “Between Mel and Terri and Nick and Laura. And between this talk about love and love itself. That’s why it ends the way it does.”
“In the middle of it all,” I said.
Carver is a great writer. They were getting that. Their expressions were open. Their eyes clear. I didn’t know what else to write on the board. But I still had a few minutes and did not want to come down from our high just yet. Somehow, there was more to say.
“Class, this is great what you are saying. But I just want to argue one thing Chris said — that this old love doesn’t exist. I don’t know why we have to assume that. It’s in the story, and Mel doesn’t seem to be making it up. Let’s say it does exist. Can we define it? This old love? This love that lasts?”
“I thought we already did,” Chris said.
“Let’s do it again then. With our new understanding.”
“Old love is just growing old with someone,” he continued.
“It’s sharing the ups and downs,” Wiki said. “It’s consistent. It’s a real bond.”
“It’s talking and listening. It’s understanding,” Monika said.
“And passion?” I asked.
“Passion dies anyway,” Chris said. “We can’t have passion forever.”
“So young love is passion and old passionless, and yet old love is more true?”
“It’s just more like something shifts. Young love is mixed up and old love is more like a friendship.”
“Ah, platonic love.”
“What’s platonic love sir,” Paweł asked.
“It’s more of a kinship. It’s what soul-mates share.”
“Sounds nice.”
“And this kind of love is a love that lasts? A love that grows, that is true?”
“If the two are right for each other,” Chris said, returning to another of his distinctions. “Some old couples are just familiar with each other, like siblings.”
“You mean stuck with each other?”
“Yea, I guess so.”
There was an awkward silence. I was running out of time and it was getting more real. The talk, or the love?
“Maybe you guys have experienced love, or haven’t, or think you have but haven’t, whatever. But you have witnessed many relationships, starting with your parents, right? You’ve witnessed many marriages, as Filip bravely touched on. Your parents, your aunts and uncles, your grandparents. What do you think? Do you think they love each other or that they are more or less stuck with one another?”
It was a dangerous question, and unfair. I tried to put it in a wider frame.
“Let’s ask the question this way: this old couple Mel has described, this ONE amongst anyones, that seems to have survived marriage and may survive after life itself — how rare do you think this love is? This true and lasting love?”
“Oh,” Maya sucked in her breath, “maybe 10% sir?”
“I say 20%,” Wiki said.
“Monika?”
“20% sir.”
“1%,” Chris said.
“1%!! Wow. There goes the romantic label. Hakeem?”
“20% sir. Maybe 25%”
“Okay. Paweł?”
“I agree. 20% sir.”
“Filip? I’m looking forward to this.”
“A number sir?”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’ll say 5%.”
“Really?! That high?”
“Five out of a hundred’s not too high.”
“Well that’s true. So let’s take an average of that and say about 15%. It begs the question: what about the other 85%!! How do they love their partners when they know on some level, greater and truer love exists?”
“Oh, this is horrible,” Wiki said. “We’re killing love sir. Don’t do this to us. We’re still young!”
“What do they do? How do they live, day to day? Is it like Mel and Terri, with something unspoken underneath?”
“I think they just pretend not to know,” Filip said.
“Not to know what?”
“That they don’t really love each other.”
“So you mean they delude themselves?”
“What is delude sir?” Paweł asked.
“It means they choose to live with their illusions.”
“Oh.”
“I think they drink,” Maya said. “Or they have affairs.”
“They have kids,” Wiki tagged on. “They invest their feelings in the kids. Like Mel thinking of his kids at the end.”
“They become workaholics,” Hakeem said.
“They rationalize,” Chris said. “They become cynics. They don’t believe anything greater than what they know exists.”
“They become depressed sir.”
“They take anti-depressants.”
“They watch TV!”
“They divorce,” I said.
“They seek honeymoon love again!” Chris said pointedly.
“And then Chris?”
“Then the cycle renews itself.”
“You mean from remarried love back to honeymoon love again? Never reaching old love?”
I used my marker as a paint brush, drawing arrows from one love type to the other. It was all coming together.
“They chase the sun while it’s setting on them?”
“You can’t keep chasing after the sun Mr. Krasner.”
And there I was completely naked. I tried desperately to cover myself up.
“Well, the sun doesn’t really fade,” I said. “It sets, but it comes up the next day.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you grow up. You wait it out. You recognize that the sun will come up again.”
“I don’t understand. You wait for another love or you stick with the love you’ve got?
“BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNG!!!!!!”
We both, Chris and I, maintained our mutual gaze.
“Did we get to anywhere sir?” Hakeem asked. “Seems like we just ended where we began.”
I was unable to answer the question. Rather, I shook off the momentary spell and searched for my marker. It was still in my hand.
Hakeem shrugged his shoulders and began packing his bag. Chris continued to scrutinize me. There’d be another day. For a couple months anyway. The sun was setting on them.
“You’ve got two weeks,” I said suddenly.
“Two weeks?” they turned. “For what?”
“Your love essays!”
“You’re serious?”
“Someone has to make sense of this.”
I pointed to the board, which resembled a poor man’s Jackson Pollock.
“What’s the topic question sir,” Wiki asked anxiously.
“The question? You have to ask the question? What do we talk about when we talk about love?”
They smiled knowingly. Within moments the room was inundated with new students. The conversation dissipated of its own. By tomorrow, it and Raymond Carver’s story (and Raymond Carver), the B-52’s, Urrrghh Love, Husbands and Wives, Marisa Tomei, the ONE vs anyone, Mel and Terri, Terri and Ed, Nick and Laura, (or Nick and Terri?), Filip’s stepdad and mother, “the silence and darkness of the heart”…it would all be forgotten.
But who is to say anything.
Maybe it remains.
